Madrigal

by John Gardner

  ‘The rifle was loaded. That was prearranged?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you ejected the cartridges, substituting dummy ammunition?’

  Boysie confirmed with a long nod.

  ‘What kind of cartridges did you understand were in the Mauser’s magazine when you entered the room?’

  ‘Specials—7.92 armour-piercing, with a soft lead outer casing.’

  ‘Like those you used on the car at Ruhleben?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘And where did you obtain the substitute dummies?’

  ‘Pinched them at Ruhleben.’ Conspiratorial grin. ‘From a crafty American sergeant called Gazpacho.’

  ‘So you ejected the live rounds of ammunition from the rifle and left them lying around where they fell. Where they were thrown by the ejector mechanism?’

  ‘Yes. One hit the foot of the bed. I heard the thump. Remember being annoyed at making extra noise.’

  Khavichev moved his head in a sign of comprehension. ‘Then you inserted the dummies. You had no other ammunition?’

  ‘No. I brought the dummies in from the West.’ Pause. Boysie lightly bit his lip. Brow creased. ‘No, there were more. They left another clip of live stuff by the rifle. I put that in my inside pocket. They said I should have some extra in case I got into trouble.’

  ‘Mumm.’ An indefinable noise from Khavichev. Now a slight change of tone. ‘Boysie, tovarich, I must tell you that our conversation now, and before this, is recorded and can be used in evidence. I want to try and prove something to you. With your Western indoctrination you will probably think it is simply a dirty Communist trick.’ He tightened his lips. ‘A trap to incriminate you. We have evidence enough already.’ Khavichev lifted a hand and told off the points on his fingers. ‘You have admitted working for the British Department of Special Security. Whoever did the jobs, you were paid for being a hired assassin. You have also worked in close contact with Colonel Mostyn, Special Security’s Second-in-Command. So you have much information at your disposal. What I do not understand is why you had to go through all the business of even leaving the Berliner Ensemble and sitting at the window—pretending to fire at the motorcade—when you did not even intend to exterminate Iris.’

  ‘I had to go through the routine to cover myself. To have a story. God knows, I was probably being watched.’

  Khavichev weighed the answer, making up his mind. Stretching out his hand, he lightly touched the open white box, then dropped his index finger on to the second box. ‘As I have told you we have evidence—evidence through which I can prove to you that they were taking you for a ride. Disposing of you. Your own people were liquidating you.’ Khavichev opened the manila envelope, withdrew a stock of photographs, and spread the first three in front of Boysie. ‘You will agree that this was the kind of rifle provided for you?’

  The pictures unequivocally showed a Mauser 98K.

  ‘It is in fact the rifle we took from you.’ He spread another batch of pictures on the table. Assorted close-ups of various sections of the weapon dusted with fingerprint powder. Smudges and prints showed clearly. One of the shots showed the butt with strands of fibre adhering to the wood and metal. Another turned out to be detail of the Hythe night-sight system.

  ‘First, this is to prove to you that in the Soviet Union we do everything right. By law. With evidence. These photographs, as I have said, are of the rifle you were using. Your fingerprints are not on the weapon, you used shooting gloves and there are plenty of glove smudges. We have, however, identified the prints of two suspected reactionaries. They have already been arrested and are being interrogated by a mutual friend. A friend of yours and mine, Boysie.’

  Boysie took out a cigarette.

  ‘Their evidence is of little importance. You are a self-confessed Western agent whom we can identify with several killings. We have eyewitnesses to your murder of my man Spensky. Further evidence is here.’ The long finger touched the photograph of the rifle butt. ‘The fibres match Spensky’s uniform where you caught him in the—where you hit him. So we have definite evidence of murder—’

  ‘In self-defence—’

  ‘—murder against you. But that is not the main point. My real project is to prove how your Western bosses put you on the spot.’ He pushed the open white box towards Boysie. ‘I will agree that the Mauser rifle was loaded with dummies when we caught you, and you had undoubtedly ejected the ammunition from the loaded rifle. One of the bullets made a nasty scratch on the foot of the bed by the way. There were five rounds in all. These are they.’ He tapped the open box.

  Boysie looked down. Five 7.92 cartridges nestled in cotton wool.

  ‘We picked these up from the floor. They show none of your fingerprints. Only those of the two men we have under arrest.’

  More photographs. ‘I promise you, though you will think I am lying, that these are the five cartridges with which your rifle was loaded. The five you ejected. Take the tweezers and examine them.’

  Boysie hesitated as Khavichev pushed the large tweezers towards him across the table. Gently Boysie picked up the tweezers and lifted the first bullet from the cotton wool. He felt his heartbeat quickening, the familiar bowel churn at what he could see. He replaced the first bullet and took up the next. The same.

  ‘The third one,’ said Khavichev quietly, ‘has a mark on the actual bullet. That is where it struck the bed.’

  Boysie took up the third round. ‘But they’re all—’

  ‘Yes.’ Confident and self-satisfied.

  ‘This can’t be the bloody ejected ammunition. They’re all’—he struggled for the correct oath ‘they’re all dummies.’ He reached for the fifth; they were all easily identifiable. Boysie dropped the last cartridge into the box in an attitude of despair. ‘I don’t believe you. It’s a load of old cobblers.’

  Khavichev opened the second white box, revealing a full clip of cartridges. ‘These were in your pocket. The ones left by the rifle. The extras in case of trouble. No fingerprints of yours. Just smudges. Have a look.’

  Boysie picked up the clip with the tweezers and again put the magnifying glass into action. The result was the same, dummies. He threw the clip back into the box. By this time Khavichev had opened the slim red plastic container. Five more cartridges. ‘These have your fingerprints all over them. You obviously handled them in the West. They are the dummies we found in the rifle.’

  Boysie did not even bother to look at them. Any anxiety had long given way to anger. ‘You tricky bastard—’ he began.

  ‘Do I have to remind you again?’ The chopping voice. ‘Try to remember, my dear Boysie. Make sure your brain is engaged before putting your mouth into gear. I am telling you the truth.’

  ‘You’re trying to tell me that my Department deliberately killed off Iris themselves and left me in a room with a rifle and dummy ammunition. Put the finger on me.’

  ‘I am not trying to tell you. I am telling you. The evidence is here.’

  Boysie’s brain spun like a buzz-saw. A Khavichev trick? A Mostyn trick? Could be either. That bastard Mostyn could do it. Would do it. He had known the end was imminent anyway. A window. A rifle with dummies. Complete denial by the Consulate or Foreign Office. Boysie Oakes acting on his own. No proof. After all, the Russians had more to gain from Iris alive than dead. Christ. Where? When? How? Why? Who? He looked down.

  ‘What happens to me? Whatever?’ He looked squarely at a blurred Khavichev.

  ‘Whatever?’ Khavichev callous. ‘A big trial. A propaganda trial. You’re strong meat. Better than Powers or Wynne. A real headliner. British denials do not matter. There will be a trial with all the evidence.’

  ‘No way out?’ Boysie clutching at haystacks.

  Khavichev came slowly back into focus. ‘Why should I give you any chances? What I have told you is true. Once sentence is passed there is no hope. Life imprisonment, and your people will not want you back. Ever.’

  ‘Christ.’ A prayer, not blasphemy.

&n
bsp; ‘Of course.’ Khavichev’s voice trickled a pinch of hope. ‘You are a coward, a reprehensible person of little moral fibre. You have worked in Mostyn’s personal office for a long while. There must be certain things you know.’

  ‘I hardly know anything.’

  ‘You would be surprised at what could be of use to us. A few sessions and we might come to some arrangement.’

  Boysie thought for a minute. His reactions were even slower than usual. ‘It’s a trick. It is you, not Mostyn. Information. That’s all you’re after.’

  Khavichev spoke softly, as to a small child. ‘You must use your reason. Work it out for yourself. Only you can make up your mind, come to a decision. I offer nothing. There is a chance, but at the moment the only thing I can see is a full spy trial as the Western press would call it. There is no other way.’

  ‘There is another way. I know what I would do.’ The voice came from the door. Boysie’s head jerked round. The light was all wrong. The face in the doorway simply a silhouette, grotesque, leaning on two sticks, but the voice was familiar. Slowly, painfully, the heavy little body advanced, one stick and one leg dragging in front of the other. The man emerged into the light. Khavichev stood up and pulled a chair near to Boysie’s couch.

  Boysie stared incredulously at the man. The last time he had seen him was from a helicopter off San Diego. By rights he should he dead, engulfed in flame from the AIM-4A missiles which had flashed from a brace of Voodoo fighters finishing off a PT boat and a Redland-mounted operation in which both Boysie and the warped man had played a large part during the Understrike affair.

  ‘You have met Gorilka?’ said Khavichev with a twitch of humour.

  ‘You’re dead.’ Boysie incredulously.

  ‘Bang, bang.’ Gorilka’s face was changed since their last meeting. Flame from the rockets had taken their toll.

  ‘How in the name of—?’

  ‘No thanks to you, Boysie Oakes. I was thrown clear of the PT boat. Unconscious and badly injured, as you can see. But our motor launch picked me up and finally got me back to base. There was an enquiry but I was exonerated. Happily my brain is not impaired.’

  ‘They talked?’ Khavichev’s question purposely cutting off any more of Gorilka’s reminiscences.

  ‘Like angels. We can make three more arrests if we want. It’s all on tape and being transcribed now.’ Gorilka’s voice came horrendously happy from the Munster-mask face. ‘I often wonder about those stories of heroism. Men not talking. The closed mouths. I fear that if the tight-lipped brigade ever existed at all they have now gone forever. They all talk for me.’

  ‘Possibly your natural charm,’ said Khavichev. Not a spectre of a smile.

  Boysie went cold. Gorilka was deadly. As Khavichev’s man in the field during the Understrike affair in America, he had nearly done for a NATO Defence Project, the British Prime Minister, and Boysie himself. A brilliant intellectual, Gorilka was also a grim psychopath.

  ‘Gorilka’—Khavichev’s voice chilly with an undercurrent of uncertainty as he spoke to Boysie ‘Gorilka is my Second-in-Command of general staff.’ Turning to Gorilka. ‘You said you know what you would do, comrade. What you would do to Boysie Oakes? What?’

  There was no feeling in the way the deformed man spoke. ‘Shoot him. Slowly. The feet first. Then bullets through the legs. The bone shattered. A day later one carefully placed stomach wound. Pain for a week. Then the chest. Another week. A throat wound. A great deal of pain for three weeks or so until death. Killed while trying to escape.’

  ‘You are a vicious man.’

  ‘We shall see.’

  Boysie got the fleeting impression that Khavichev somehow feared Gorilka.

  ‘I have pointed out the true position,’ Khavichev said. ‘His own people will never want him back, but we could come to a deal. I don’t think he quite believes that Mostyn framed him.’

  Gorilka gave an imitation of a laugh that would have assured him a part as one of the witches in Shakespeare’s Scottish play. ‘Fool. We need no trials or deals. Information can be extracted painlessly. The pain can follow. Don’t forget all the equipment is still intact from Stalin’s era. The golden age. You should know about that, Comrade General.’

  Khavichev was silent. Then, just as he was about to speak, a knock came heavy on the door.

  ‘Viadee te.’

  This time it was a young officer, facial inscrutability trying to hide concern. He moved with immaculate military precision, the salute to Khavichev being obeisance to the man, not the rank. Khavichev, in the eyes of most of his staff and the whole of Soviet Intelligence, was more of a myth than a legend. The officer’s left hand came forward, handing a long, folded sheet of paper to the General.

  Khavichev opened the document, showing no sign of concern until his eyes began to move across the page. The strong face slowly sagged. Confidence began to disappear from the usually alert eyes. Gorilka watched, his wrinkled and horribly clawed face set tight as plastic. Khavichev allowed the paper to fall between his knees. Involuntarily he spoke in English to Gorilka. ‘We’ve failed. They’ve got Warren. Got him from the English.’

  Gorilka spat out a phrase in Russian which obviously meant, ‘Not in front of the serfs.’ Tension, the unbearable concern of defeat between the two men. Then Khavichev turned his whole body towards Boysie. He spoke sharply.

  ‘That will be all today. I will see that you are taken care of. I promise what I have said is the truth. Your English masters have failed you. Remember that. Remember also that you are a man of little principle. We might have work for you. I do not know yet-. It is a germ. A germ of an idea.’

  ‘You talk nonsense.’ Gorilka had taken the paper from Khavichev and scanned it hurriedly. ‘Number Four Group can deal with this.’

  ‘And break their cover? Your experience is limited in the field, Gorilka. I make the decisions.’ He turned to Boysie again. ‘We will see you later. Within hours you may well have to decide your fate. You may well have to decide. Think logically about what has happened. Mostyn tried to get rid of you. I promise that.’

  Gorilka, disregarding Boysie, was already halfway to the door, hobbling slowly like a battery-operated toy. Khavichev made his exit with a straight back. At least he was a soldier. Depression immersed Boysie. The black ink of an octopus, the terror of drowning, the touch of suckers and tentacles.

  Chapter Four: Dragon

  …and with weak hands though mighty heart

  Dare the unpastured dragon in his den?

  Shelley, Adonais

  The hand was clamped to his shoulder, shaking violently. Boysie, fist clenched, tried to beat the arm away, but it was like banging against hard metal.

  ‘Oakes. Waken. Waken. Up. Come on. Up...up...up.’

  Boysie opened his eyes. The lights were on, slashing pain momentarily above the eyes. A hand on his shoulder was still tight, clasped, fingers digging and pressing into the deltoid muscle. Khavichev stood over him, pummelling consciousness into the mind. Boysie started to sit up.

  ‘How long have I been out?’ Boysie shocked at the change in Khavichev’s face.

  ‘Only the night.’

  ‘How long? How long have I been here?’

  ‘I told you, just the night. We picked you up at about twenty to nine last night. It is Tuesday morning.’

  Boysie, now fully in focus, stared at the General. It was hard to believe that this was the same strong man, the hammer of Soviet Counter Espionage and Subversive Activities. His leather-grained face had taken on a surface sheen of grey, the sharp eyes were dulled, showing an underlying, preoccupied stare of stress, sunk into black sockets. The big body gave the impression of having dwindled, shrivelled overnight. Khavichev looked hard back at Boysie—through Boysie.

  ‘You feeling all right?’ Though he was at Khavichev’s mercy, the question was demanding to be asked.

  ‘No.’ Khavichev’s voice dull as his eyes. He took a deep breath. ‘I have dismissed the guards. The electronic equipment is tur
ned off. Gorilka will not disturb us. He is still under medical care and does not rise until eleven. There is not much time but I must talk to you. Make you an offer.’

  There was a desperate, suspended state of silence before Khavichev spoke again. The vocal note was a plea.

  ‘What I told you last night. Have you seen reason? I must have the truth. Do you now believe that Mostyn and his superiors arranged for your capture? Or do you still not trust me?’

  The toss of a coin; the spin of a wheel; the dice (‘Baby needs a new pairs of shoes…Snake eyes…Sorry chum’); pull the handle and up come the three lemons—or more likely a peach, a pear, and an orange. It was all a gamble. Boysie made the quickest decision of his career. He plumped for Khavichev.

  ‘I believe you,’ he said softly.

  ‘You are right. If you ever get back to London you will find out.’

  ‘So what happens?’ Some fundamental change of mood had given Boysie a new attitude. He did not really care any more.

  ‘I have much to tell you.’ Khavichev sounded dreadfully tired. A broken man. Even an old man. ‘Things no one else has heard. Things very few people know of. Why should I tell you? I have held more power than you can ever hope to hold. We have been enemies. I could even have you shot now.’ He stopped. Then, loudly with drama, ‘The great Khavichev is finished.’ Bitterness. He raised his hands and dropped them in an attitude of finality. ‘Unfortunately Gorilka has many important friends. You must have seen last night that he is unfit for his job. Our legal system—whatever your Western propaganda says—is strict. Certainly we in espionage, in security, elicit confessions. Gorilka meant what he said. That is the way he would have killed you; out of spite, vindictiveness. And he would have broken our legal code.’ Khavichev raised his right hand as though holding a pistol and pulled an imaginary trigger. ‘I fought hard to prevent Gorilka’s appointment as my Second-in-Command. He wanted my job, and now I suppose he will get it. For a while anyway. Unless I get him first. Before noon today.’

  ‘Noon?’ Boysie concentrating.